Well, it has finally begun. What we’ve been waiting for and thinking about and planning all winter long has arrived. The time has come!

We hook up to the planter, drive out pass the Dogwood blooms and head to the Boone field. Heart aflutter, we ease that rig down in the soil, give her a little fuel and slowly let off on the clutch. Ever so gently, the first seed falls into the soil. Then another. Then another. Plop…….plop…….plop.

And — just like that — everything changes.

Kind of like getting in a roller coaster, buckling up and it starts moving. No turning back. You’re going up that 300 foot mountain of steel.

Kind of like getting in an airplane as the flight attendant slams shut the side door and the plane starts moving. You’re committed. Whether you like flying or not, you’re about to go airbourne.

Perhaps it’s most like matrimony. Whereas you’ve sorta’ been thinking about it and imagining it and considering the implications, now you look that person in the eye as a hundred guests give witness and utter the solemn words “I do”. Whatever may come, you’re committed.

So it is that life now takes a different turn.

As you’ve recently only barely noticed the weather, now it becomes the warden, imprisoning your thoughts. The weatherman transforms into either a brilliant spokesman who joyously proclaims such news as calls for celebration, or a stern judge who brutally announces your sentence.

The mailbox says you are now more popular than ever as the seed, fuel and fertilizer folk send their ever thicker reminders that you are not forgotten.

Wives, weekends, holidays, dinner dates, outings and hobbies all slip into subservience as your new master rises to the fore.

Your imagination blossoms with the pear trees. What will the season bring? The perfect “checkerboard” stand? Will every thunderstorm see fit to pass over the farm dropping beautiful, luscious life-giving rain? A dry, uninterrupted bin-busting harvest?

Whatever — here we go! The great, glorious, grand adventure has started! Like a huge army given the command, you are but one of a thousand farmers in a thousand fields, poised to march. Sound the bell! Proclaim the news! Forward! It has started! All with the falling of the first seed!

Plop……..plop……..plop……..plop…plop..plop..plop.plop.ploppppppppppppppp………………………..